Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Crisis Resource Page

Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant
Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant
 
Thanks to @all, the collaborative crisis research group, for being ahead of the TEPCO curveball all along,
for being absolute beasts at the search engine, and voracious sifters of incredible masses of data.
On March 11, 2011, Fukushima Prefecture in NE Japan was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the Tohoku Quake, in Japanese the 東北地方太平洋沖地震 (Tohoku-chiho Taiheiyo-oki Jishin), possibly the biggest earthquake ever to hit Japan. It struck at 2:46pm with a magnitude of 9.0—a level of 7 on the Japanese earthquake scale.  At 3:52pm all but one of the emergency diesel generators at the Fukushima Dai-ichi (No. 1) nuclear power plant were knocked out by a tsunami exceeding 45 feet. This power outage led to a series of crises at each operational reactor and four of the six Spent Fuel Pools (SFPs).

 Dai-ichi Reactors 3 and 4 Since then it has been a constant struggle to regain control over a site with 6 reactors, three with reactor cores at least 20% melted, and all with pools holding their spent fuel rods, altogether thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear fuel.

The site has experienced at least three explosions, recurring fires and major radiation leaks into the sea and into a countryside half-evacuated amid a backdrop of tsunami destruction.  Flooding with water to keep the damaged reactors cool has resulted in over 65,000 cubic meters of radioactive water, which must now be removed, or dumped into the sea. Think of an olympic-size swimming pool, the big ones, not the half-size.  Now think of 26 of them, because that's how much water they have to lose. 

Here are some links that tell the story:

  • Crisis at Fukushima: A document from CalTech that explains the BWR (Boiling Water Reactors) concept (and what went wrong).  Well illustrated.
  • Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Accident Log:  A fairly complete timeline of events at the Dai-ichi plant during this crisis.
  • The Great Tohoku Earthquake:  Reports blogged in Japan on Gakuranman from the very beginning.  Three links.  The first tells you what the second is:
  • Ruminations on Citizen Journalism and Media Bias: Don't let the title throw you.  This is a great look at how it all looked to a concerned Tokyo resident.
  • The Great Tohoku Quake:  Blogged from Tokyo as it happened from March 11, 2011.  Excellent, excellent citizen journalism
  • Links to Japanese resources and news sites, as well as the latest updates to the Tohoku Quake blog
  • Original Reuters Live Coverage: 250+ pages of the best coverage of the first weeks of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant crisis
  • Pre-disaster Fukushima Photo Tour: An excellent, comprehensive look at the Daiichi plant from @all. Exhaustive enough for researchers.
  • May 10 Update: @all's Dr. Robert Jacobs on Russia Today talking about the unfolding disaster:  Public right-to-know vs. micro-managed information
  • TBS/JNN Live Fukushima Cam: Streamed 24/7 from a mountainside just outside the 30km exclusion zone. Extreme telephoto, but live.

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    Fukushima Time:
    Resources for the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Disaster Vallejo Community Self-Interest Resources
  • @all News and Analysts blog: News and Tech followup to the Reuters Live Blog
  • @all Unmoderated Open House: Social/Cultural followup to the Reuters Live Blog
  • Fukushima Wiki News Roundup: The wiki for news story collection.
  • The Static Blog: Collected photos, video, MAPS, data, links etc.
  • Japanese Powerplant Page:  Bill McDonnell's excellent link list.  Good portal.
  • TEPCO Status Page:  Heavily filtered, but right from the horses...
  • Kyodo News: Clamped down somewhat now, but fresh advisories ongoing 
  • JAIF: The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, industry apologists, but official data
  • IAEA: The International Atomic Energy Agency News page
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  • Berkeley NUC: The UCB Nuclear Engineering Monitoring Page
  • North Pacific (STORMSURF): Sea, wave, air and surf forecasts
  • EPA RadNet Lab: US radiation sampling results. Map
  • The Radiation Network: Independent radiation monitoring
  • UMD Plume Projections: Radiation plume spread forecasts
  • Other monitoring sites: A large list of resources.
  • NILU: Interactive isotope dispersion modeler. 
  • Earthquake Map: Display of past day's quakes.  Near-current
  • Radioactivity Conversion Table: to compare different units.
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    Is This Serious and What Should I Do if It Is?
    It's impossible to be sure how much threat there is at the moment with all the vested interests trying to keep this nuclear "incident" swept under the rug. When Daiichi belatedly graduated from three INES Level 5 accidents (Three Mile Island was a single Level 5) to one INES Level 7 (greater than or equal to Chernobyl), who would have imagined that the collective media response would be to yawn and see what was new in Charlie Sheen's self-destruction?

    It seems we have to try our best to keep ourselves informed if the latest media shiny object isn't the focus of our existence, so here's some collected     information you can use to inform and protect yourself to whatever level, including perhaps none, you feel the situation deserves.
  • Water Filtration: Not necessary now—Vallejo's water is testing clean—but here's a good explanation of the options.
  • Radiation Health Effects and Mitigation:  Common sense list of what to eat to lessen absorbtion of radioactive toxins, from Holly House.
  • Dr. Rima Laibow Recommends What to Do About Radiation Posted On Mar 29: Online discussion. Starts slowand then becomes more informative.
  • www.gaia-health.com: A quick reference examination of alternative approaches to protection and treatment of radiation exposure.
  • crunchybetty.com: After the obligatory information about iodine, this quickly runs through some herbal and natural radiation mitigators.
  • wildmedicinalherbs.com: Holy Basil, also called Tulsi, has a growing body of scientific studies suggest that Tulsi basil can help protect and defend the immune system and organs against radiation poisoning.
  • www.grinningplanet.com: Like it or not, the fallout from Fukushima is likely to add some level of radiation contamination to food and water worldwide. Ingesting fallout-contaminated food will be unavoidable in the future, so the main mitigation strategy going forward is to make your body resistant to the effects of the contamination.
  • Radioprotective Potential of Plants and Herbs against the Effects of Ionizing Radiation: For the straight science, here's one from the National Institute of Health site, with many referenced studies as documentation. The introduction reads:
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    "The results obtained from in vitro and in vivostudies indicate that several botanicals such as Gingko biloba, Centella asiatica, Hippophae rhamnoides, Ocimum sanctum,Panax ginseng, Podophyllum hexandrum, Amaranthus paniculatus, Emblica officinalis, Phyllanthus amarus, Piper longum, Tinospora cordifoila, Mentha arvensis,Mentha piperita, Syzygium cumini, Zingiber officinale, Ageratum conyzoides, Aegle marmelosand Aphanamixis polystachya protect against radiation-induced lethality, lipid peroxidation and DNA damage."
    Random Links

    (This is a hodgepodge of links that I thought for a minute were worth grabbing, perhaps wisely, perhaps not.  It's a jungle out there.  Good luck.)

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